Media agree with request to withdraw from town

Three broadcasters confirmed last night that they were withdrawing their journalists and production teams from Soham after police requested them to do so.

The crews from Sky, the BBC and ITN left the Cambridgeshire town, with dozens of reporters representing newspapers within minutes of recording the announcement that the two girls found dead on Saturday afternoon were Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

The move was expected to leave a town, which had been at the centre at some of the most intense media scrutiny seen in Britain, devoid of media representatives and satellite vans by midnight.

Up to 400 journalists, photographers and production staff had spent two weeks covering a story, which gripped not only Britain but also much of the world.

Among the media village that installed itself in Soham Village College, the school that itself became the focus of the murder inquiry on Friday, were television crews from Europe, Japan and America.

The story of the missing girls received particular in-depth coverage in France after three television stations – TF1, France2 and RTL – and several radio stations dispatched reporters to Cambridgeshire.

But the blanket coverage in newspapers and on television screens took place amid a renewed debate about the "news management" tactics of police leading the inquiry.

Beyond the necessity of offering journalists daily press conferences, the media was drip fed to ensure the story – and the effort to achieve success in what was until 48 hours ago the exhaustive hunt for two missing schoolgirls – stayed in the headlines.

The girls' families and their friends made their appearances before the cameras under the auspices of Cambridgeshire police while there was a steady stream of off-camera briefings.